Torah & Obedience

This Teaching calls believers to test inherited church teachings about tithing against Scripture. Beginning with Abraham’s gift to Melchizedek and Jacob’s vow, the speaker traces the tenth before Sinai and then examines the defined agricultural and livestock tithe, its holiness to Yahovah, and its distribution to the Levites under the temple system. He describes covenant stewardship as sustaining worship, supporting those without a land inheritance, and helping vulnerable people. The Teaching distinguishes the mandatory, land- and Levitical-based tithe from voluntary gifts supporting gospel workers, reading Yeshua’s words and Paul’s letters against the backdrop of a functioning first-century temple. The speaker concludes that Christians cannot replicate the Torah’s prescribed tithe without the land, temple, and Levitical system, but still have a responsibility to give freely, support faithful ministry, meet needs, and handle what belongs to Yahovah honorably. The later Q&A revisits Malachi 3, ill-gotten donations, and the difference between covenant changes and the temple’s destruction.

The Teaching presents that Jeremiah 31 promises a genuinely new covenant rather than a renewal of the Sinai covenant. Although Torah remains central, the speaker emphasizes changed covenant mediation, ratification through Yeshua’s blood, and the promised writing of Torah on the heart through the Spirit. He argues the new covenant was inaugurated through Messiah’s death and is active now, while its full consummation awaits His return. The speaker presents these as his interpretations and encourages loving discussion.

In this Teaching, “Torah Is Liberty,” the speaker explains why he understands Yahovah’s commandments as a path of freedom rather than bondage. Building on the earlier Teachings “Who Told You?” and “Babylon: Come Out of Her, My People,” he challenges inherited assumptions about Torah, examines passages in Galatians often associated with bondage, and distinguishes salvation by grace through faith from the redeemed person’s walk of obedience. He also warns Torah-observant believers against replacing church traditions with new human-made rules, criticizing others over personal interpretations, or treating added restrictions as holiness. The Teaching draws extensively from Psalm 119 and other passages describing the law as delight, wisdom, peace, and liberty, and concludes with a call to hold to what is written and extend grace in fellowship.

“Christ Plus Nothing” examines the difference between receiving salvation by faith and living as a disciple afterward. The speaker affirms that a person does not need to become Torah-observant before coming to faith in Yeshua, but challenges the use of the slogan to portray obedience, repentance, or discipleship as additions to Messiah’s saving work. Drawing on Acts 15, Matthew 7 and 28, John 14, James 2, and the Hebrew Scriptures, the Teaching argues that genuine faith leads to growth and obedience. The discussion also explores how the Torah and Prophets illuminate the Messiah and concludes with a call to share biblical convictions graciously.

This first part of the Teaching reexamines Job through the lens of faith rather than suffering alone. The speaker argues that Job’s upright conduct and regular offerings can be read alongside a possible tendency toward precautionary, transactional religion. Comparing Job with Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, the Teaching contrasts outward blamelessness with walking relationally with Yahovah. It examines the accuser’s challenge, the assumptions of Job’s friends, and Yahovah’s sovereignty over adversity. The central invitation is to move beyond a formula of good deeds for blessings into personal trust and faith, even when circumstances are painful or unexplained. These are the speaker’s interpretations, not claims that the biblical text explicitly states Job lacked a relationship with God.

This Teaching examines sanctification as more than a label meaning “set apart.” It presents sanctification as an ongoing process of spiritual preparation in which a believer responds to Yahovah through faith, obedience, repentance, and submission to His Word, while Yahovah is ultimately the One who sanctifies. The Teaching distinguishes the free gift and starting point of salvation from the continuing work of growth and maturity. It uses the Sabbath, Joshua’s preparation before entering the Promised Land, Leviticus 20, Yeshua’s prayer in John 17, Romans 6, and other passages to show a life moving toward holiness. The closing discussion expands the theme by emphasizing the work of the Ruach (Holy Spirit), perseverance, baptism, and growth “from glory to glory.”

This Teaching examines Philippians 4:6-7 by asking what Scripture means by the peace of Yahovah that surpasses understanding. It contrasts the common idea of peace as a calm feeling produced by favorable circumstances with shalom as wholeness, well-being, security, and right relationship with Yahovah. Using Genesis 15, Philippians 4, Psalm 55, 1 Peter 5, Isaiah 26, John 14 and 16, Jeremiah 6, Isaiah 59, Psalm 119, and Proverbs 3, the Teaching develops a path from knowing Yahovah through His Word, to believing, obeying, experiencing His faithfulness, growing in trust, and receiving His peace. Trials are not presented as proof that peace has failed; rather, biblical peace is described as a settled condition that can remain while trouble, uncertainty, suffering, or loss are still present. The closing discussion adds personal testimony and cautions against assuming that anxiety or depression automatically proves spiritual failure.

This Teaching uses Yeshua’s rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 23 as a warning to believers who sincerely desire obedience. It traces the Teaching’s account of how zeal for Torah and covenant faithfulness can drift into ‘safeguarding obedience,’ building extra boundaries, elevating interpretation, and eventually treating human tradition as if it were Yahovah’s command. The central warning is not against obedience; it is against replacing Yahovah’s standard with a system that only looks righteous. The Teaching repeatedly turns the Pharisee example inward, asking Torah-minded believers to examine pride, elitism, groupthink, claimed authority, and inherited interpretations in their own communities. Its proposed safeguards are humility, testing every teaching against Scripture, refusing to make human teachers into rabbis, keeping Yeshua as Teacher, serving rather than seeking preeminence, and remaining willing to repent when Scripture exposes error.

This Teaching studies the biblical high places as a picture of idolatry, syncretism, and incomplete repentance. It begins by defining high places as centers of pagan worship and then traces how Israel adopted surrounding worship practices, sometimes blending devotion to Yahovah with customs associated with other gods. The Teaching’s central application is that a high place can become a useful spiritual picture for customs, beliefs, memories, or practices that a believer remains emotionally attached to even while seeking to follow Yahovah. Sentimentality is therefore a recurring theme. The speaker contrasts kings who did what was right yet left the high places standing with Hezekiah, who removed them and even destroyed the bronze serpent when it had become an object of worship. The Teaching asks listeners to examine whether inherited religious ideas or worldly customs have become similar anchors in their own faith and encourages a gradual, humble process of comparing beliefs with Scripture, repenting where needed, and removing what competes with complete devotion to Yahovah. The group discussion emphasizes humility and love toward family members and others who are at different points in that process.

This Teaching uses Yahovah’s question to Adam in Genesis 3:11 – ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ – as a framework for examining where believers get their doctrines, traditions, interpretations, and standards of holiness. The Teaching argues that inference becomes dangerous when it is elevated to doctrine and imposed on others as though Yahovah explicitly commanded it. Adam’s physical condition did not change after the fall; the Teaching emphasizes that his perception and source of authority changed. From there it compares competing sources of truth – feelings, experience, teachers, tradition, pride, perceived blessing, and personal reasoning – with the written Word. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes are used as historical examples of communities that, in different ways, departed from what was written. The repeated challenge is to ask, ‘Where is it written?’ and to distinguish personal conviction or commentary from commandments that can rightly be required of others.